1. Field of Invention
The present invention relates to a golf practice device. Specifically, the present invention relates to a low cost to build golf practice device including a practice platform capable of simulating a plurality of hitting conditions.
2. State of Art
It has been always a hot topics for inventors to create good methods and practical devices to help a golfer to improve his skill in hitting ball on various fairway surfaces. To see this, all one needs to do is to search USPTO patent database, using “golf” as keyword in title field and “platform” in description field, one will find a lot of patents about platforms for improving swing on variety of hitting surfaces. For example, U.S. Published Nos. 20020187848, 20020128084, 20020119827, 20010044344, 20010034272, U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,514,152, 6,450,895, 5,944,615, 5,720,670, 5,558,334, 5,527,042, 5,470,074, 5,358,251, 5,340,111, 5,046,741, 5,005,837, 4,875,684, 4,331,332, 4,279,420, 3,693,979, 3,639,923, 3,633,918, 3,633,917, 3,430,964 and 2,937,875 published as early as 43 years ago, are all related to improving golfer's skill in hitting ball on surfaces of various inclinations. This fact reveals that golf swing is really a difficult skill to learn, it needs practice after practice to master, and that for the last forty plus years, the enthusiasm to invent an ideal device improving golf swing skill never decays.
More importantly, it reveals that an ideal device which is affordable and love to use by the individual golfers has yet to be seen in driving ranges and golfers' backyards. This is not saying that previous inventions such as those listed above are not good. Actually, if any device based on previous inventions mentioned above is available, one can really benefit by using it repeatedly and very possibly some golf schools/academies already have some such kinds in use. The problem is, we do not see these devices anywhere in the driving ranges and the reason, as quoted from paragraph 4 of U.S. Pub. No 20010,044344, “The electrical-mechanical and electrical-hydraulic platform devices are complicated and expensive to design, manufacture, sell and maintain”. In fact, any customized component, not only electrical-mechanical or electrical-hydraulic one, used in the new invention is expensive to design, manufacture, sell and maintain, even the socket-ball combinations and movable supports used in U.S. Pat. No. 20010,044344 are not cheap to build either. Although it is very possible that some affluent private country clubs or golf learning schools may have expensive devices based on any of above mentioned inventions, it is yet to see them appear in the more public driving ranges and widely used by generic public golf lovers as a common practice tool.
As all kind technologies progress, the more recent inventions mentioned above have some modernized functions imbedded in the inventions, for example, Published Nos. 20010034272 has programmable memory to help learning, U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,358,251 uses pressure sensors for detecting weight distribution during golf swings. However, the central theme in all inventions mentioned above is still regarding to the creation of easy and convenient golf swinging practice platform with a plurality of lies on various inclinations. To achieve this goal, almost all designs in the inventions mentioned above have inclinable platforms such that golfer can adjust to uphill, downhill and sidehill surfaces. To make a platform inclinable, a lot of inventions mentioned above, U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,633,917, 5,340,111 and 5,358,251 to name a few, use hydraulic cylinders together with other highly customized parts to achieve the function. Some designs such as U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,430,964, 3,633,917, 4,279,420, 5,005,837 and 5,558,334 are rotatable, either with power assistance or not. Of the 25 inventions mentioned above, only 10 of them do not need electric power to operate.
The commercial driving ranges usually partition the driving area into many small swing stations. Between the stations, there is a short separation wall or other barrier to protect golfers from hurting by wild drive. On the floor of each station, typically a movable driving floor mat is sitting on the ground, with a rubber tee inserted from bottom of the mat. Some better equipped stations have power supply, some also have roofs to partially shield golfer from sunshine and rainfall. Some even have overhead hanging fans blowing heat in the winter, make stations usable all year round. Each station is about 7 to 10 foot wide. With limited space in each station, a lot of practice platforms embodied from previous mentioned inventions will not fit in such stations. Even those stations with roofs, the environment condition should still be considered as ambient, thus the platforms which are not weather resistant, especially those with complicated moving parts and control wirings will be suffering from high maintenance cost if they are installed in such stations.
The cost of using a swing station varies from around $3 to $10 per bucket of balls in the Maryland suburban area, depends on the number of balls in the bucket and driving range location. Membership subscription usually is much more affordable. Even that, the long term cost to use driving range for developing consistent golf swing is high for a normal golfer. And for this cost the golfer can only use the flat driving platform. If a driving range owner considers to invest money to upgrade some of the swing stations to be inclinable, no owner can afford a complicated, expensive and high maintenance cost inclinable platforms because then he or she needs to transfer the additional investment cost to the consumers and may not have positive impact on the business. Since most driving ranges associated with the golf courses have only roofless, no power swing stations, these golf course owners may not like any platform which requires power to operate because the cost to dig ground, bury power cables and to maintain them in the outdoor is high enough to stop them from installing such platform. This concludes that, among the 25 above mentioned inventions, 15 of those require power to operate have already been excluded out as practical platforms for the driving ranges.
Some designs, although require no power to operate, the level of customization for the components used in those designs are too high to be cost effective. These include U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,005,837, 5,046,741, 5,527,042, 6,514,152 and Pub. Nos. 20010044344, 20020187848.
Still, some designs are quite simple to build and require no power source but tedious to operate, either need manual adjustment of the threads one by one in order to change the inclination or need to lift the whole platform for making big adjustment. These designs include U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,430,964, 3,639,923, 4,279,420 and 4,331,332.
It should be pointed out that, a highly customized component is already expensive to design, manufacture and maintain, production in very limited volume make the component even more expensive. After all, a golf swing platform is used only by some specific, not even generic golfers, so the big volume production will never happen. Therefore, it is easy to see that all the complicated, multifunctional swing platforms may belong to no where, may belong only to training schools or private country clubs where some people can afford the high cost, but never belong to driving ranges where normal or weekend golfers have more limited resources to build up consistent swings.